And We Are Back: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  October 10, 2011]

Yes, we are back in New York, my family and me, ten years ago this week, after the presentation of The Baby to family and friends, and The Baby, nearly eleven months, showing some signs of perambulation.

It's interesting to turn these pages of my old diary, because I think we are getting into the stretch where my long-term memory falters and it's all going to be a surprise to me.

First night back in the city, for example, and I book dinner at Zoë, that SoHo survivor which worked impressivley hard at leveraging support through social media, back when that wasn't an everyday term, but was battered by the economy and gave up the ghost in 2009.  Zoë also worked tremendously hard at enticing diners with the local-seasonal deal too.  Little under the sun is new.

Anyway, I'd had pleasant dinners there in the past, so I guess I picked this as a relaxing option after the high energy cross-Atlantic trip.  Grilled oysters first with bacon-butter sauce and some spinach.  Sounds pretty good.  Then slow-braised short ribs with - hey, surf'n'turf - a rock shrimpy garnish, and some mashed potatoes.  A Viognier with the oysters, the Lang & Reed Cab Franc with the ribs, then Randall Grahm's Bonny Doon "Prunus" with a cookie plate.  That was a dinner.

I spent Sunday thumbing through a catalogue of Toulouse Lautrec's prints - why not? - before preparing guinea hen in a cream source for dinner with doubtless seasonal roasted beets and a slab of Pont-l'Évêque to finish.  I had acquired a bottle of Asturain cider from somewhere (the sort of thing people are doubtless going crazy for at Tertulia this week), so in the absence of Normandy cider I opened it with this very Norman dinner.

Apparently I was reading Moby Dick that week too.